Here's a figure to chew on, though you may find yourself choking. It comes from the US, but there are similar numbers in the UK, too. Remember those banks that were so close to collapse, so desperate and needy they held out the begging bowl and pleaded with the taxpayers for help? Well, it turns out that nine of those banks – who between them trousered $175bn of the American public's money in bailout funds – have fallen back into their old habits: last year they paid their top staff $32.6bn in bonuses.
You read that right: the number is in billions, not millions. Institutions that were so broke the government had to raid the public piggybank to help them have rewarded their employees – the geniuses who drove the world economy off a cliff – with a $32.6bn shower of cash. That includes the truly incredible $98.9m paid to Citigroup's master of the universe, Andrew Hall, along with 5,000 lucky individuals who received more than $1m each.